An Interview with Brad Hansen

You may know him more for two particular viral videos that go by the names of 'The Lion King Rises' and 'WALL-ETHEUS.' With the rather novel idea of syncing the audio of all-new movie trailers to the scenes of those that fit in an almost oxymoronic way, Brad Hansen has recently received massive viral success.

Surpassing a million hits within seven days, we had to talk to him and find out more. How does he create these mash-up trailers? What else does he do besides these creations? And just how does one connect a children's film with the audio of something less...youthful?

As Brad allows us insight into the conceptualising process, "First I find a new trailer that people are really interested in. Then I just think about what characters, themes, and visuals seem to match up well, that would make an interesting counterpoint. If I can also think of a clever title spoof, then I know I'm in good shape!"

"I watch the trailer a hundred times over until I have it nearly committed to memory. With Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus I was already doing that, being fans of both franchises. Then I watch the movie I've selected to replace the footage with (Lion King or Wall-E) to refresh my memory, taking note of shots or scenes that could work. Then, using Final Cut Pro, I futz with every single shot to make sure it's evocative of the original, as well as getting the lip-syncing right and making hits happen with the music in a satisfying way. It definitely takes patience!"

Brad Hansen is currently making videos for entertainment site craveonline.com; but beyond that he also works passionately on short/indie film projects. "I also make original work when time permits, much of which is on my Youtube channel MovieMaestroTen. We finished the short film Perv: The Cat not too long ago and my feature film, Driver's Ed Mutiny just became available to watch on Amazon instant view and Indieflix. But I always keep my mind open to remixing things, it's a thrill to take something, turn it on its head, and show people an aspect they hadn't seen before."

For those aspiring to partake in making a viral video, he pointed us to a lavishly detailed blog, wrote by himself, explaining the key steps in the process of creation, sharing and analysis.

So the question persists. This concept of a trailer parody is not a new one, audio mash-ups are rare but not non-existent; but what gives a man the type of creative thinking to map our the entire cast of the Nolan-made Batman films to that of The Lion King? The answer to Brad is simple:

"I felt there were a lot of connections between the two movies that would be fun to explore. You have a hero who is shunned from his home who has to come back and rise again, you have this sort of class warfare going on with the hyenas, and obviously the villain sneaking around behind the scenes. With these mashups half of what makes them work is strong "casting" of your characters, and I remembered there being a lot of characters in Lion King that lined up well with the Batman universe. For example, I knew Zazu, the doddering caretaker of the lion family, would be an ideal Alfred."

With the amount of online publications which have reported on these Youtube successes, it was only natural to ask, with anticipation, just what trailers he was looking to creatively 'destroy' next. The answer couldn't have got us more excited.

"I'm always on the lookout for interesting remixes. Right now I'm going to wait until the next big trailer hits and see what comes into mind that would fit in a cool way. The next Avengers trailer would be a great target."

What films could possibly make for a suitable visual accompaniment for Brad Hansen? We, for one, cannot wait to find out.

Jason England

I am the Founder and Editor-in-chief of New Rising Media. You can follow me on Twitter @MrJasonEngland.

An Interview With Atomic Productions

With their slick, stylish, creatively-inventive spoofs of two of last years most accomplished and masterfully-made films, Atomic Productions' parody trailers of Inception and The Social Network – respectively known as Inebriation and The Brocial Network – have together grossed just under 2 million views on YouTube.

Not bad considering their combined production takes up but a small portion of the group's already highly impressive filmography, they're made on a shoe-string budget and came out of a challenge by creative director Andrew Adam's college professor who urged the group to try “something funny with that sort of grave seriousness” that they knew so well.

An Interview With Shed Muzak

Take a moment to purvey YouTube's 'Music' category and there's considerable odds that you'll stumble across one of two things. The first of which will be all-too-familiar with regular viewers of music videos on the video-sharing website: the presence of VEVO and traces of the music monopoly it has built through the site. The second is the wealth of renditions of popular music by artists largely unknown outside of subscriber-bases and online fans. Shed Muzak might very well fit into the latter category, but it'd be remiss to take the group for granted as yet another band whom methodically recreate songs word-by-word, beat-by-beat, such is the large proportion of videos therein.

Dark Knight Rises trailer parody. Audio sync with Lion King scenes

So after a fantastic trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, breaking iTunes Movie Trailer records by exceeding 12.5 million views in just 24 hours, Youtube user MovieMaestroTen has made the pitch perfect parody, syncing the audio from the Batman trailer with scenes from Disney's The Lion King.

Prometheus trailer parody. Audio sync with Wall-E scenes

You probably already know about the the Alien quasi-prequel Prometheus, and also about the the Pixar animated film Wall-E. Two films of opposite polarity in terms of age appropriacy, brought together in a rather humourous parody.

An Interview with a Kopimist

So the story went viral not so long ago that a rather small 3,000 strong organisation, called the Church of Kopimism, had been confirmed as a religion by Swedish Officials. You may know this more as another coined term: 'The Church of file sharing.'

Starting as a term used in Pirate forum conversations to invite copying of information in the early 2000s, 'Kopimi' soon expanded in definition to a way of life and belief in the freedom to copy and be copied, not for political reasons; but for a much deeper purpose: sharing information, copying and building upon it just as a DNA strand's ability to replicate and evolve. The religion follows a key set of axioms, and carries a powerful missionary message:

- Copying of information is ethically right.- Dissemination of information is ethically right.- Copymixing is a sacred kind of copying, moreso than the perfect, digital copying, because it expands and enhances the existing wealth of information- Copying or remixing information communicated by another person is seen as an act of respect and a strong expression of acceptance and Kopimistic faith.- The internet is holy.- Code is law.

From all to one and from one to all – and then back again – exchange without beginning and without end. Everything to everyone’s delight, and everybody’s joy of it all. No one is excluded from the global community of knowledge and information sharing. Every believer has all knowledge – all knowledge is spread by every believer to all people without exception. Start the exponential cascade.

Christopher Carmean is in no way of special status beyond being a registered Kopimist living in America, as he urged to tell us before we began to ask him questions: "I am merely an enthusiastic Kopimist, hoping to share the faith in the USA and ultimately establish a legal non-profit entity to conduct religious services and charitable work." This made us much more appreciative, and all the more curious to hear his story.